


A Crazy Gorram Story

by Herself_nyc



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-20
Updated: 2014-07-20
Packaged: 2018-02-09 16:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1990329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Herself_nyc/pseuds/Herself_nyc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's gorram eccentrics all over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Crazy Gorram Story

**Author's Note:**

> This consists of the original story, plus some additional sequel material at the end.
> 
> It fits into the Bittersweets continuum but is a far future fic. Probably not entirely necessary to have read the Bittersweets first; just know that Spike and Buffy were together, she was immortal, so on and so forth.

"I do like when we have passengers on _Serenity_ ," Kaylee said, licking her fingers. She was beaming, Inara noticed, at an even higher wattage than her usual. The girl was so charmingly transparent. Handsome men were to her so many gaudy Christmas presents beneath the tree. The pair they had on board now were certainly, as Kaylee liked to say, _shiny._ When they were around, she couldn't take her own shining eyes off them.

Their presence so enlivened Kaylee that Inara didn't have the heart to mention that she'd glimpsed them late last night, after they'd visited their luggage in the cargo bay. In the shadows beneath the stair, the tall one had pinned his friend against the bulkhead, surging against him, kissing him hard. Their groans, though they'd stifled them, had still been perfectly audible. Inara was a connoisseur of such groans.

"So do I," Mal said, stepping into the mess. "Because they pay."

" _Not_ just that," Kaylee insisted. "They bring us things."

"Chocolate." River kept her eyes fixed on the saucepan Inara slowly stirred.

"Apples." Mal fished one from the crate the newcomers brought when they'd boarded three days ago.

"They bring us _stories,_ " Kaylee said.

"Stories? One of 'em we've barely seen, the other talks nearly not at all. It's a little creepy, I reckon. The third one _boasts._ "

"They're not boasts, cap'n. They've had many colorful adventures. I could listen to him for _hours._ And it's not just the stories. They bring us excuses to celebrate, like we will tonight."

"That what you're burnin' up that chocolate for?" Mal said.

"It's not burning," Inara said. "I'm watching it very carefully."

"Birthday cake." Kaylee beamed. "They brought us all the fixin's, everythin' real, an' asked for it special. I love birthday cake. I don't even care whose it is--or even if I get a piece. I just like the whole idea."

"Those fellas asked you to bake 'em up a birthday cake?"

"They did, cap'n. Only it's for _her_."

Inara had been trying to figure out, since the passengers came aboard, what exactly they were to one another. They'd come, apparently, by a very round-about way, from one of the Inner Worlds, and were headed, in no direct fashion, for some vague homesteading opportunity on the Edge. She'd just about made up her mind--the sexing she'd witnessed didn't alter her supposition--that the shiny men were somehow indentured to the woman in bonds of servitude. She was silent and imperious and sour in the manner of someone used since birth to ruling her little domain, even if it was only the tiny cabin on _Serenity_ from which she'd barely emerged since boarding. At the table, the men didn't talk about her--even the garrulous one, when asked about the lady, fell silent and looked rather slavish. They seemed, not exactly afraid of her, but elaborately cautious. Certainly beholden by some iron obligation. The two brought her meals on a tray--carefully assembled to look tempting--and the quiet one had even asked them for the loan of books she might like to read. The Shepard and Simon were most obliging, producing between them quite a stack of volumes.

"She gonna sing an' make the first cut all by her lonesome in her bunk, or you reckon she'll show her face in here with us peons?"

Inara couldn't help enjoying Mal's humorous mood, even if it was at the expense of their paying guest.

"'Course she'll show her face," Kaylee said. "I told you we're going to _celebrate_ , didn't I?"

 

 

* * *

 

Inara set an extra place at the table that evening. The warm sugary smell of the cake still filled the mess, even though it was done baking. She and Kaylee had iced it (and licked the bowls) an hour ago. Now it sat on the counter, waiting to make its debut. It was the first thing each of them noticed as they filed in for dinner--Wash had to be yanked back bodily by his wife before he could dive into it face first. Jayne's habitual suspicious squint gave way to an unguarded gawp of boyish interest--until Zoe jerked him too out of temptation's way.

The dinner was steaming on the table and the whole complement assembled, gazing, hungry and curious, at the three empty places, before the passengers filed slowly in. The men came first, their Mistress after. She didn't glance towards the cake, nor did she seem aware of its aroma. Neither did she look at any of them. Her gaze was fixed on nothing, a nothing not quite at her feet, but perhaps at the level of everyone's knees. She was a small woman, almost starved-looking, eyes and lips peculiarly white-ringed, her long long plait of droopy light brown hair looped twice around her neck. Young, but with an air about her that got Inara's hackles up--she was like River, in the sense that there seemed to be something wrong with her, something undefined, denied. She strode as if she didn't like her boots, and held herself in general as if she didn't want to acknowledge where she was, or with whom.

The tall quiet man stepped ahead to draw back her chair. The smaller man, who'd regaled them with the funny improbable stories, and who talked a bit like Badger, took gentle hold of his Mistress's elbow to guide her to the table. For a moment she seemed to resist. He put his lips to her ear.

"C'mon, now. These good people are waitin' on you for their supper."

Still she balked. That's when Mal got to his feet, and to Inara's surprise, sketched a little bow from his place at the head of the table. "You're real welcome, ma'am. Do sit down."

She fixed her gaze on him, not quite startled or uncomprehending, but it was clearly the first time she'd taken any notice of the strangers who surrounded her.

"You're the captain?"

"Captain Malcolm Reynolds. As introduced when first you came aboard."

Her gaze dropped again, and Inara thought she blushed. "I ... I wasn't feeling well that day. I didn't take anything in. I'm sorry, Mr Reynolds."

"You feeling any less poorly now, ma'am?"

She looked at her servants--the hulking one, solemn and stolid, who still held the chair, and the smaller fair one, his hand still on her arm, who regarded her with a tenderness that Inara did not expect. When she turned back to Mal, she drew herself up. "Please don't call me ma'am. My name is Buffy."

 

 

* * *

 

Mr William Grieves, who had so entertained them at the table in the last few days, was nearly as silent now as his friend Mr Liam O'Connor. The woman--B. Summers on the ship's manifest--sat between them, stirring warm protein lumps around on her plate with a fork. Had it not been for the valiant efforts of Book and Simon and Wash, there would've been no conversation at all.

No one seemed much interested in the savory food. Awareness of the cake to follow--real, fresh--hung over the _Serenity_ crew. When Inara slipped out of her chair, heads turned, smiles blossomed.

Grieves rose too, and followed her. "Hold up a minute there, I've got a bit of decoration for this fine thing."

Smiling, he drew a small suede sack from his pocket, from which he poured into his hand something that gleamed in the low light of the galley. A pearl necklace. beautifully graduated and matched, ending in a wink of a diamond clasp.

Inara strongly suspected it was real.

Where had a bondsman put his hands on such a thing? There were no oysters anymore, no real pearls, even cultured ones. All that had died out with Earth that was. Antiques were irreproachably costly, and rare.

"Think this'll fetch a smile," Grieves murmured, deftly arranging the necklace into the shape of a script B right on top of the sticky icing.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Inara had to restrain herself from plucking the gorgeous thing out of the goo. It was too precious to cover in chocolate! Too precious to emerge from the rough pocket of an indentured servant. Something was wrong somewhere.

Mal would laugh at her for caring about it. Crime that didn't rob them wasn't crime worth fretting about.

"Oh, she won't mind. Just be happy to see it again."

 _See it again?_ Inara's mind spun as she struggled to make sense of this. Had the man stolen it from his Mistress? What sort of game was he playing?

"She will. You'll see. Got such a thing as a candle?"

"Only these." Inara stuck the thick taper into the center, and lit it. Together, she and Grieves carried the heavy plate towards the table. Kaylee, wreathed in glee, began the birthday song. The others joined in lustily, all except for Mr O'Connor, who kept a furtive, anxious eye on Summers.

She didn't react at all, even as the cake was set before her and the others cheered.

"See, there's a bit of a present for you, sweetness," Grieves said. "Blow out the candle now."

She stared at the cake, at the stubby candle, at the pearls glimmering hotly on the bed of frosting. Moments passed, the anticipation of the party for all that sugary yum ratcheting up by the second. Grieves and O'Connor leaned in close to her, as if she was a child needing guidance.

Inara waited for the smile.

Slowly, Summers rose from her chair. Her hands plunged into the cake like it was mud. Came up with two thick fistsful, the pearls nearly extinguished in brown glop. Thrust them--it wasn't exactly a punch--into Grieves' face.

"Oi, Slayer--leave off!"

The rest of the cake--with the heavy plate--flew across the room. Its shattering was drowned by the collective cry of dismay--oh, the beautiful cake--gone! O'Connor grabbed the woman's shoulders as she surged out again.

"How could you!" she shouted at Grieves. "How could you let this be! You're my _husband_!"

Husband! Inara's mind whirled to grasp this new scenario. She must know, then, about the kissing! _That's_ what this was about!

Wiping cake from the angles of his face, the pearl necklace caught in one fist, Grieves shook his head. "Buffy--love--think. What else could we do--"

"I _trusted_ you! To do the right thing for me, if--when--it was necessary! But you didn't! And now you're--what? Mocking me with this?" She held up her cake-smeared hands. " _Spike_. My _birthday_?"

"Buffy, we only wanted ... to give you something normal ... something nice. Nice for you." It was O'Connor who said this, his massive calm scalloped with pleading.

" _Nice_? I come to in a box-- _again_ \--and find out its been hundreds of years and I've _failed_ and my children are dead, my sister's children are dead, my friends' children are dead, our planet is _gone_. And yet you want things to be _NICE_?"

So, she didn't know about the kissing.

She was, instead, merely out of her mind.

"Let's have this talk later," Grieves interrupted. "Let's have it in private."

Summers laughed. Then, as if realizing for the first time that they weren't already in private, she glanced around at her audience, meeting the eyes of each astonished crewmember around the table before fixing on Mal. "You. Do you all realize how _stupid_ you've been? You've invited _vampires_ onto your spaceship. _Bloodsuckers._ Believe me, that's _never_ good."

"What's she talkin' about?" Mal looked at Kaylee, and at Inara, as if they were responsible. "Now I got _two_ crazy females on my boat!?"

"I'm talking about the undead. _Demons_." She was calm now, eerily calm. "These two are undead ... and I should be dead. If they'd done right by me, I would be. I'm not dead, or undead, or alive. What am I, anymore? What am I _doing_ here?" Her sudden wail made them all jump. If not for O'Connor grabbing her in time, she'd have slid to the floor.

Simon was on his feet. "A sedative--carry her into the infirmary--"

"It won't help to drug her. She's only telling the truth." River swayed a little as she rose from her chair. "It's true. What she's saying. She's been immobilized too long ... and now she's waking up. It's horrible for her."

Summers glanced up. Her sobbing face was a crumpled knot. "Horrible! How can _you_ know what's horrible! No one--no one knows ...."

" _I_ know," River said. "Poor thing."

Recoiling from her, Summers shouted. "You guys have your own troubles! If these vampires run out of the blood they brought with them, they might go for _you_! Suck you dry. And don't look to me for help--I'm a failure--and I've never been able to slay those two ... " She grimaced, as if seeing things in memory too terrible to bear.

"You're not a failure," River said reasonably, nodding and smiling as if she was in complete possession of the situation. "You did your best, like always. What happened wasn't your fault. And there's no need to slay them. They're not going to hurt us."

Simon, mouth ajar, pinged his attention rapidly between the two women. "Mei Mei ... what are you talking about? What do you mean?"

"I mean just what I say. You're the one doesn't know sense when you hear it, Simon _stupidhead._ " River's lip rolled back, a laugh flashing out. For one second, the atmosphere almost lightened. River was in charge.

Then Jayne sprang up. "Okay!" he barked. "Get both these raving looners out of my sight before I do somethin' rash!"

 

 

* * *

 

Much later, when the excitement was over and most had gone to their bunks for the night, Inara stole back to the galley with the idea of cleaning up. But all traces of the smashed cake were gone, the table was cleared, the kitchen tidy. William Grieves stood at the sink, gently washing the pearl necklace in a dish of soapy water.

"Really thought she'd be glad to have this again, but I guess it was too soon," he said as Inara approached. "Gave it to her when our second boy was born. She almost never took it off."

"So she _is_ your wife." Inara watched him swirl the pearls through the water.

"Among many things, she's that." He looked thoughtful, and kept his eyes on the necklace.

Just when she thought he wouldn't speak again, Grieves said, "There's nothing wrong with her mind."

"I ... see."

"That little girl--doctor's sis--she knew all about it, sure enough. She knows all about everything. What's in all our thoughts, an' our hearts."

"It seems to be her affliction," Inara agreed.

"She's been tampered with."

"Yes."

"So's Buffy. Not in the same way, not by the same agency, or for the same reasons. But like the little girl, she's full of power that obligates her. Won't let her rest easy."

"If she's not ... not crazy ... then what was she talking about? Calling you and Mr O'Connor vampires, saying--" Inara paused. She'd called him _Spike._ That popped back into Inara's head suddenly, and distracted her for a moment. "Oh. _Oh_. She meant-- Because you two, with each other--"

Grieves looked up, smiling. "No, that's not it. She's known me an' old Liam a long long time. Knows all our tricks an' our manners. She called us vampires because that's what we are. Usually no call to point it out, but she was exercisin' her feelings." He lifted the pearls from the brown water, turned on the tap and dangled them through the clean stream, then wrapped them gently in a dishtowel. "Slayer's ... disoriented. Not sure she wants to be here."

 _Slayer?_ "Here where?" In her confusion, Inara let the vampire thing lie where it was, though it ticked loudly. "Here on _Serenity_?" Were her husband and this other man transporting the woman against her will? She imagined bringing the case to Mal. Kidnapping. He might not care. Their money was good. He probably wouldn't choose to court trouble.

" _Serenity._ Any of this." He shrugged to indicate infinite space. "Buffy was born in 1981."

"She-- _what_?"

Taking the dry pearls from the towel, he fastened them around his own throat. The gleaming strand disappeared beneath his shirt collar.

Inara blinked.

"Like I said, she never took these baubles off, 'cept sometimes in bed, when we were naked, an' then she'd try them on my lily neck. Or twine 'em round my cock an' balls. Got her hot again after she'd come, to bedeck an' admire me. I'm good-looking in my skin." He was a handsome handsome man indeed, and not just that. He was possessed of the sort of charm that could exact almost anything from almost anybody, when he cared to work it. Still, Inara didn't feel he was working her. That kind of operation she could understand. This was just ... strange.

"When we retrieved her from the big battle--when they spit her back at us, more like, the way you'd spit out a cherry stone--she was locked into a magical stasis so tough an' foreign we couldn't none of us find a way through it. Enemy must've thought that would hurt us all more than just killin' her. They killed plenty enough of our band all the same, an' we were all in a disarray. My poor Slayer was battered an' broken, but she still had on her pearls. Took 'em off her an' kept 'em safe, against the day she'd put them on again with her own two pretty hands." He held them up to the light. "Kept 'em, but shortly after, managed to lose her. Had a hell of a time just gettin' off-world while there was still a world to get off of. Not so easy to keep a girl in a mystical coma in your back pocket when you've got to keep moving. We were separated from her in the midst of a confusing situation. Believed she was jettisoned somewhere, destroyed."

"When _they spit her_ \--what they? I don't understand what you're talking about." _Magical stasis?_ He was pulling her leg. Yet he sounded so confidential, so matter-of-fact. Not like someone making up a story on the spot.

Seeing her incredulous look, he smiled again, a gentle indulgent smile. "Buffy, an' me, an' Angel--we're warriors, too. Like your Captain and his first officer."

"Warriors. Against the forces of darkness." Inara smiled back. She didn't quite know what else to do, except play along. _Demons_ , the woman had said. Well, she certainly had them, and so, apparently, did Grieves.

"Strange as it seems."

"I don't know what to say."

"No need to say anything."

Inara considered wishing him a good night and going back to her shuttle. She could, after all, just leave that word, that silly, absurd word, 'vampire,' to lie there and tick all it liked. Nothing obligated her to take it up and make a fool out of herself with it. She felt foolish enough, just listening to this tale without protesting. They were odd people, with outlandish beliefs, but they were paying passengers, and despite the earlier scene, nothing about them pinged her sense of danger--or, more to the point, Mal's either; he'd been irritated but unconcerned after the crisis was passed. Whatever they were, he said, was none of their business, long as they behaved themselves from now on, and that was that.

She could just imagine what he'd say if she related this conversation. _There's gorram eccentrics all over. Not hurting us none._

Still, she couldn't quite leave it alone. "Just tell me ... she's traveling with you of her own free will, isn't she? She's not in any way a prisoner?"

Grieves looked surprised. "Slayer's free as a bird. _We_ couldn't hold her even if we tried. You're quite welcome to ask her."

"I won't disturb her tonight."

"Probably best. But you talk to her tomorrow. 'Spect she'd be glad of a chat with a sympathetic lady." Again he showed her his delicious smile. "Thanks for your help earlier. You're a kind lot, here. S'not so usual, this end of the system." He shrugged. "Or any end, for that matter."

 

 

* * *

 

As she passed towards her shuttle, Inara saw lights in the infirmary. Simon sat curled over a tablet, flicking through data faster than her eye could follow. River perched on the counter, kicking it with her big boots and looking rather smug.

Inara put her head in. "Everything all right?"

Simon glanced up, telegraphing despair. "They don't have pulses."

"They--?"

"O'Connor and Grieves. I took readings, on the sly, while they were in here with the woman. They have no vital signs. At all."

River grinned, thumping her bootheels harder. "There's nothing mysterious about it. They're classic vampires."

"Mei Mei, there's no such _thing_!"

River's laugh was musical. She made eyes at the ceiling as if it was a friend she was colluding with. "It's true they won't hurt us. Neither of them has killed to feed in centuries. They have souls."

Was the passengers' delusion affecting River's delicate mind? "Sweetheart--" Inara moved towards her.

River slid off the counter. "Wouldn't it be good to _know_ you had a soul? And to be guided by it?" She slipped past Inara and out the door.

 

 

* * *

 

Buffy's cabin was empty. Angel was alone in his, sleeping heavily, his face settled into a frown of weary resignation.

Spike found her in his bunk, folded onto the bed, playing with the end of her long plait. The hair that had grown and grown for centuries, while she lay, unsuspected, in a misplaced crate in a wares unit on an obscure long-term storage moon. She smelled now of tears, sweat, and a little of Angel. He experienced a kneejerk twinge of jealousy; set it aside. Her eyes were swollen from weeping, her expression shuttered.

He still couldn't quite fathom her presence. She'd been dead and gone for centuries, and with her the existence he'd grown used to: the solace of a wife, a settled home, a circle of friends, children who were his own flesh and hers. He'd lived on multiple lifetimes, known all sorts of people places and things, but never imagined having anything like that ever again.

He came slowly down the ladder. "Hello, pet."

"The whole earth was destroyed because I failed."

"No. _Not_ so. Not by any stretch."

They'd skirted this subject up until now. Skirted most subjects. For the first ten days after they took her away, she hadn't spoken at all, though the people at the hospital said she could. He and Angel didn't say much to her--her presence made their memories careen in a way that skirted the sickening. Everything was so fucking precarious.

"How did everyone die? Our children?"

"I'll tell you, far as I ever knew it. But not now, yeah?"

Something in her cracked a little. A gleam of realization kindled in her eye, softened her. "You're tired, Spike?"

"A bit. Too tired to think that much of my darlings who're gone." He couldn't explain either, how very very out of practice he was about remembering them.

She hung her head. "I can't keep track."

"Track of what, pet?"

"For you it was a long time ago, but not so much for me. So I forgot that you might still be sad too. I'm so ... oh Spike--everything is so strange. How can you even know me anymore?" She trembled and began to sob. He crossed the small distance from the ladder to her side, gathered her into his arms. Holding her, he was moved by the strong beating of her heart. Five hundred thirty-six years old. He'd known the very moment the magic released it to beat anew. Angel did too, no need to question or compare notes. In awe and trepidation and wild hope, they'd just started off towards it, not talking about what they might find. It was six months before they could get to where she was.

He and Angel still hadn't talked about it. Their joy at reunion with her was beyond words to express, and so was their fear. Fear--for her and of her--that they tacitly declined to acknowledge by discussing. Admitting it, Spike felt, would enlarge it. In the centuries of his loose partnership and travels with Angel, she had become their cherished memory, fierce and sacred.

At last she raised her head. "I don't understand any of this new world. Worlds. I don't know how to live in this ...."

"We'll figure it out, together." He hoped this was true.

"You can't possibly be the same. I'm a burden to you. I know you can't have been waiting for me. Not this time. "

"Not waiting, pet, no. But you an' me, we're fused. 'Course I want you, same as ever."

She took this with a sly look. "What have you and Angel been doing?"

"For last four hundred years? How much time have you got?" He smiled, but Buffy's eyes went wide and haunted.

"Too much! Too much! I don't want--I never wanted--"

He waited. Wouldn't prompt her. Not to say she didn't want to live.

She breathed. He felt her gather her self-possession. "Are there still demons? Do you--"

"We do. Move from place to place, where we hear of bad things, try to make a difference. One thing's easier--these new planets, don't have the sunlight problem. We're not sure why, but it's a bonus. 'Course, it's a bonus for the bad vamps too."

"It never ends." She wouldn't look at him. "I was always afraid of this. More than anything else. Of it never being over. Never being finished. You were supposed to show me mercy."

 _Mercy._ Funny way she had of putting things. In her rage before, over the cake and the pearls and his insistence on celebrating her _life_ , she'd railed at him about trust. Trusting him to do the right thing--and by that she'd meant, putting her out of her misery. Letting her go into death when death came. Maybe she'd even meant sending her to it, if it wouldn't meet her so much as half way.

"Buffy, you weren't dead. We tried to break the spell, revive you, but we were on the run. Had no idea how long you'd be under, but world was ending, everything was chaos, we had to keep moving. No time to research, to get help ... An' then we were separated from you, an' ... we've never forgiven ourselves. How we bungled it." Someday he'd tell her about the decades lost to that post-debacle guilt and despair. Decades when he'd almost gone feral again. The sickness that came of being too free.

"Angel said it wasn't your fault."

"Did he? Well, it wasn't his either. Just events we couldn't control. Buffy, I'm sorry. Sorry how it turned out. I'm glad though that I'm still here for you--that we both are. And so pleased--beyond pleased--to see you again."

She got up. Went to the sink in the corner, stared at herself in the mirror. "How do you stand it?" she said, staring, staring, staring into her reflection. "You and Angel, how do you stand it? Never aging, changing, dying. It's inhuman."

 _Well, we're not human. And neither, anymore, are you._ "What did he say when you asked him that?"

"He didn't. He kissed me."

 _Poof could be a bloody coward sometimes._ Still, that would be the first she'd permitted either of them to touch her since they'd found her, a few weeks ago, in that fifth-rate nuthouse. Spike hoped that was a good sign.

"Buffy, what can I say? No easy answers. Takes some getting used to. Won't pretend I don't have some bad times. But you know me--I love life. Experience. All the little details an' dramas. I'm always curious, yeah? That's what keeps me goin'. That an' love."

"You love Angel now."

"We both love you."

"How can you? I'm ... ancient history."

"It won't feel like this always, pet. We'll look after you, an' you'll look after us. Find ourselves a new home base somewhere. Friends, who'll fight with us." As he spoke, the words formed shapes and flavors in his mouth; he couldn't decide if they were incredibly banal, even offensive, or if they were simple and real and true. This situation, her anguish, his own uncertainty, was enormous--too big to map yet. Eons since he'd been her husband. All the conversations he'd had with her in his mind while she was absent, and in his dreams ... they didn't count. Her very familiarity was eerie, almost off-putting. "Maybe Powers That Be'll even give us a new family eventually, once we're settled somewhere."

He winced at himself for saying these things. When she protested with a shudder, he was relieved. Too soon by far to contemplate it, though they'd never had any control anyway over the Powers' capricious life-bestowing gifts. Hard enough to recall the children--the grown ones with children and grandchildren of their own, and the one who was still small when the battle began. Every one of them, little stitches to bind him and Buffy to the human continuum.

None survived. He'd lost the habit of saying their names over to himself. Forgotten quite what they looked like. Certain details blurred, and he didn't resist the blurring. He had no mementos of any to sharpen his backward focus.

Following her, he smoothed her hair.

"I know you're afraid. But, turns out you're unsinkable, Buffy. I've got to say there's no bad there. Here you are again to make me glad."

She let him draw her around, kiss her bony white forehead. Her tears dropped onto his hands where he cupped her face. "Does this really make you glad?"

He gathered her closer. Forehead to forehead. Her breath faint against his face. "We never let you slip away from us, Buffy. Angel an' me, we talked about you, we kept you in our hearts. You inspired us, helped keep us on our paths."

"Oh God--I was really dead. You believed I was dead, and--"

"Doesn't matter. You know how I love. Know what's in me that always belongs to you."

"Spike ... it's too much. Time, it's too big ...."

"Sssh. Time's just time. Take it minute by minute."

"I can't ...."

"You made me a man, an' I am your man. Long as I exist. Don't leave me now, Buffy. My pretty wife."

She looked at him. It felt like the first time, since they'd tracked her down on Londinium, that she'd really let herself see him, let him see her. She searched him, breath held. Then her arms came up around his neck.

"I don't know whether I can do this, Spike. Even minute by minute. But right _this_ minute, okay ... I'd like you to be glad."

 

 

* * *

 

She cracked a smile when he took off his shirt to reveal the pearls. The smile loosed two last tears to track down her ashen cheeks. He offered the necklace to her again, but she made him leave it where it was. He deliberately didn't ask himself whether this was a rejection or not. It was too hard to think of. He wouldn't speak the name of the son whose birth the pearls commemorated, the son who had been all the good things that their first son was not. Neither did she.

Her body was pale as his own, the ribs stark, the shadowy dips nearly green in their chalky whiteness. Seeing her breasts and belly, her pouting sex, so long untouched, unseen, nearly bloodless and dry, filled him with pity and despairing wonder. He said nothing of that. He'd always feared magic, its implacable cruelty, more than he even liked to admit. He didn't understand the magic that had ensnared her, or why it had at last given way.

Caressing her at first seemed awkward and too deliberate. Trepidation tamped down his desire.

Buffy was quiet, almost passive, so that he couldn't at first escape a sense that he was trying to possess an effigy. She seemed surprised to have a body, surprised at its sensations.

Later on, it got easier. She found her voice, her demand. When he filled her, she grunted and surged back. She was strong and insistent, as she'd always been. Whispered the old nasty words to him in the old way--of course they weren't old to her. The thrill of her breath against his ear, her little teeth nipping at him as she urged, set him alight. When he tasted her cunny again, its long-lost scent and flavor blossoming on his tongue, racing through his senses in a tidal wave of recollection, Spike wept. It was really Buffy. She made him feel proud, the way no one else ever had.

They fucked for a long time, different ways. They tried a couple of times to settle to rest, but Buffy couldn't let him go.

Towards morning, Angel looked in for him, and seeing him spooned against Buffy at last asleep, made to withdraw. But she opened her eyes and gestured to him. After some nearly wordless negotiation, Spike watched her, in a kind of silent rapture, give herself to Angel. She was so small beneath him, her face and Angel's so solemn. His jealousy, he realized, wasn't there. He was only moved to see them become lovers again. This meant they were equal now, all three, equally bound to each other.

Afterwards, she rested on them both.

"I'm glad," she said, fingering the pearls around his neck, "that my stupid 'birthday' is over."

Spike got up on one elbow, fumbled with the catch of the necklace. Angel reached across and got it open.

He held Buffy's hair up off her neck while Spike encircled it with the pearls. They admired them, and her, together.

"That's you all right again." Spike hoped he was saying something true.

"Ah, look at her," Angel said.

He kissed Buffy's nape, as Spike kissed her mouth. They settled down again, twined together around her slender warmth. Spike was relaxed at last, though the bed was nearly too small for three. They weren't out of the woods, far from it, but he dared to believe now that she wouldn't desert them.

Buffy was found, and wouldn't be lost anymore.

 

 

* * *

 

"What are you doing?" Inara whispered. She leaned over the catwalk rail to see where Simon, below, directed his bobbing flashlight beam. "You aren't opening that!"

"Sssh," Simon said. "I need to see what's in their crate. I need to know it isn't what River says. It can't be."

"But--" Inara glanced over her shoulder. What if they were caught? It was this time of night when the two men had come to the cargo bay before.

"If I can tell her that they aren't traveling with a big case full of blood--for God's sake--then she'll stop insisting they're vampires!" Simon pried the lid off the wooden box, to reveal the top of a large sealed cooler that fit neatly inside. This yielded, giving up a cold cloud of condensation. "I can't help what the Summers girl says, but River doesn't have to collude in her madness, just because she feels sorry--" The mist cleared. Simon played the light over stack upon stack of plastic packs of ruby liquid.

Inara broke the brief silence. "That ... doesn't prove anything. Synthetic blood probably fetches a top price on the outer worlds. They're smuggling it."

"They're smugglers." Simon stared.

"Must be."

"But--" He gestured mutely at the box.

Enough of this, Inara thought. This was getting ... weird. "Simon. You're a physician. What is it physicians say, when they're diagnosing? That when you hear the thunder of hoofbeats, you don't first assume zebras."

"Yes, only--"

"They're _horses_ , Simon. Of course, they're only horses. Just like us. Trying to stay free in this difficult world."

"Horses that smuggle. Not ... not zebras that drink blood to stay ... animate."

Inara forced herself to laugh. "Doctor! Listen to yourself!"

Stories, Kaylee had said. Passengers brought stories. He'd certainly told her a story, that Mr Grieves.

But that's all it was, Inara thought. Some kind of a crazy gorram story.

Below, Simon sighed, and began to reseal the crate. "I know it seems absurd to you ... and it _is_ ... but since River and I have been on _Serenity_ ... I've encountered more zebras than I ever thought possible." He sat down hard on the wooden lid to shut it. "Living out here, it changes what you expect."

"It suppose it does," Inara said, still sympathetic in her confusion. "Good night, Doctor Tam."

"Good night, Miss Serra."

 

~END~

_The above is a self-contained story. I wrote more, which doesn't conclude. Continued in Chapter 2, "In A Lady's Bed"._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, obviously, this is a BtVS story as well as a Firefly story. It fits into the Bittersweets continuum--which I didn't say above so as not to spoil the reveal. But let's call it a possibility for their future, rather than a certainty. I just wanted to try out a bunny here. If this is your first foray into my fic and you're not familiar with the Bittersweets saga, my series of S/B tales which veers off from canon after "Wrecked" in season 6, you're probably wondering how Buffy got to be 536 years old. I refer you to the tale _What's It To Be?_ in which we learn that post-resurrection, Buffy did in fact "come back wrong," in the sense that she's now not entirely human, and is likely to be extremely long-lived, if not actually immortal. The series also explains how it is that Spike and Buffy became parents, and is, I'm told, a rollicking good read, so do try it.
> 
> This chapter completed November 2004.


	2. In a Lady's Bed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Is she going to be okay?" "She'll have to be, won't she?" Some intimate conversations on _Serenity._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Dovil as a Hurricane Katrina charity fic.

Awakening to find Buffy gone, the declivity between them where she'd lain already cool, Spike was a little bit glad. 

Then he felt guilty for feeling glad even a little bit. 

And guilty for reaching at once for Angel, who was also awakening, blinking, focusing on who was and wasn't in bed with him. 

"Where'd she go?" 

"Where could she have gone on this tin can? Christ, you smell good when you've been sleeping." Spike crawled across him, making himself heavy on the solid slab of Angel's chest, and brushed his lips across his sire's. Angel's big hand came up and encompassed the back of his head, urged him in closer. He groaned as Spike kissed him. Angel's mouth and face smelled of Buffy's juices; they both did, and it excited them. 

"Fuck me, our Will," Angel shifted beneath him, opening himself. Spike lifted one big leg to his shoulder, spat into his hand to make things wet. When he went into him, Angel smiled. Sometimes his face could be so boyish. Spike smiled back. 

Afterwards, head pillowed on Angel's huge biceps, Spike lit a cheroot, exhaled, and listened to the churning of _Serenity's_ bowels. His body was pleasantly numb. The funk of sex was heavy in the tiny cabin's stale air. There was so little else to do on this ship. 

"Never gets old," Angel said, caressing Spike's cheekbone with the rough back of his hand. 

The remark sent Spike's thoughts skittering. "We do, though. Never thought I'd be so bleedin' old. I've forgotten more'n the average scholar'll ever learn, an' still I feel like I've seen every fucking thing there is." 

"Twice," Angel agreed. 

"How do we stand it?" 

It was what Buffy had asked. He'd spoken to her about love, about taking an interest. Which was the truth, but sometimes he wondered. How much she'd be able to stand, how much she should be expected to stand. He couldn't fathom the depths of her unhappiness now. 

"Is she going to be okay?" 

"She'll have to be, won't she?" 

"She'll have to be," Angel echoed. He sounded no more convinced than Spike was. "Should get up and look for her." 

"She's not lost. She'll come back when she wants to. Better not to crowd her." Buffy had already complained about the smallness of the ship, and their accomodations. Spike knew that she was having flashbacks of waking up in a box--the box where she'd spent the last five hundred years, and the coffin in Sunnydale before that. 

"What if we're crowding her already?" 

"She doesn't want to leave us." 

"We're all she has now," Angel agreed. "But we ... what we ... might be too hard for her." 

"You think? Seemed to me like jealousy wasn't on her mind last night." 

"She's not used to sharing you." Angel's fingers caressed Spike's shoulder, ran down his arm, brushed a nipple. Spike left his smoke in the ashtray, and turned back into Angel's arms. 

"What was it like," he whispered, as Angel grasped his nipple, squeezed and tugged it, "fucking her again? After all this time?" 

"How can you ask me that?" 

"Thought I could ask you pretty bloody much anything by now." 

"Do you mean, am I hoping to do it a lot?" 

"No, that's not what I mean." 

Angel had seized hold of his cock now, dragged it up against his own. They were both still sticky from their previous exertions, but despite having just come, Spike was ready for another go. Angel could get him up with a look, with a word, or like now, with the merest of touches. You'd think familiarity would breed boredom, if not contempt, but Spike had never been like that. He got off best, was excited most, by lovers of long acquaintance. Angel was the longest. Holding them together in his massive hand, Angel thrust, so the wet tip of his cock nosed Spike's ballsac. 

"Fucking hell. Yeah. Do that again." 

Angel grinned. "S'like what schoolboys do. You always liked this." 

"An' you. _Shit._ " He wriggled, trying to fuck Angel's encircling hand, but now Angel held him down, curbed his movements, so he had no choice but to let everything he was rush to the sensitive tip of his cock, rubbing so maddeningly against the same spot on Angel. 

"Pretty Will. Pretty cock, pretty arse. Always. Not giving them up now, not for Buffy or anything." 

Spike was sure that wasn't what he'd meant either, but he was glad to hear Angel assert it anyway, so glad that he shuddered and came, too soon, but Angel wasn't displeased. He just clambered up and presented his own erection to be sucked. Spike took it eagerly in. 

Since they'd sensed--and then confirmed--that after so many centuries, Buffy wasn't lost, wasn't dead, he and Angel found themselves, to their mutual surprise, unable to keep their hands off each other. They'd been buggering each other on and off forever of course, but there was more emotion between them in the last six months, and of a different kind, than Spike could remember since ... well, since they'd lost her. And at _that_ time, the passion was for mutual recrimination and fury, that led to a parting of more than twenty-five years. He'd have said, for the last two hundred at least, that Angel was a trusted, even if often scarce, comrade, and, at certain times and in certain places, he'd have admitted they were lovers. But there was something in the joy and apprehension and sheer terror they'd experienced when Buffy's energy resurged, and they set off to find her, that made them want and need each other like never before. They didn't talk about it much-- _always were a pair of randy bastards, you an' me,_ was about all Spike had to say on the subject, _as_ a subject. With Angel, he tapped into a tenderness he could express physically, but not articulate. 

Before that--while the war was on, though it barely touched him--he'd lingered on a little cow-planet on the edge, called Minerva, one of those places where the orangey light of the sun-star didn't fry him. He'd been just passing through when he witnessed a bar fight of exciting proportions--one tall lanky cowboy taking on ten, and winning. The matter-of-fact and beautiful violence of the fellow made Spike's blood sing, and he stayed on observing to the end, determined to shake the man's hand. 

When the thing was over, the tall cowboy turned out to be a woman. 

Neelia had a fascination for him, and a sexual thrall. She was bigger than he was, and stronger, and she dominated him in bed that first time with the same taciturn instinctive confidence with which she manhandled the animals. There was nothing he had to teach her in that way except how to kiss. The first time he thoroughly kissed her--it was after she'd given him their first astonishing fuck--she almost punched him, and then blushed all over like a young girl. It was that blush that roused his interest as well as his lust. She wasn't beautiful--not in the face, certainly, which was too long, bisected by the line of shade made by the hat she only took off when she laid down: sun-scorched on the bottom half, and yellow-y white on the top, with a twice-broken nose and eyes that were too small and close set. But her long body rippled with strength, her black hair, when she let him unbraid it, was thick and silky as a mare's tail, and she had a cunt of such prodigious flexability and delightful aroma and flavor that Spike, a cunny man from way back, could only worship it in abject gratitude. 

Spike was sure Neelia was a slayer, but he never could convince her of that, or even that demons and vamps were real. There were none on Minerva. None of that had anything to do with her life, which was lived outdoors in the daylight of a harsh landscape. 

He ran cattle with her and her people for almost eleven years. They were, like the Masai on Earth-That-Was, blood drinkers themselves. None of them suspected him. He never went into game face while he lived on Minerva, and the only times when he was half-way tempted to reveal his status were on those infrequent occasions when Neelia would grieve over being barren. Then he worried that he was thieving her life, and tried to convince himself he'd better leave her. He told her it was he who was barren, and that she'd better go with another man. 

But she never would go with another man. "You suit me, Will," were her strongest and seldom repeated words of affection. Spike didn't think he was exactly in love with her, not like he'd known love in the past. 

But on the morning when her foot got caught in that rope, and the bull on the other end of it broke her neck, he couldn't remember what his reservations about her might've been. He wept the whole way, carrying her broken body back to camp. When the elder offered him the consolation of one of their rituals--a posthumous marriage--he accepted gratefully. Neelia's wedding and her funeral took place together. Spike was a bridegroom and a widower on the same day, and so doubly expected, as many told him, to shed his tears. 

He stayed on Minerva for a few more months, for the look of the thing. But there were other women who wanted him, and he couldn't want them, so he packed up and went seeking Angel again. 

Only Angel could console him. Angel did. 

The taste of Angel's spunk, spurting now across his tongue, was as gratifying, in its way, as fresh blood. 

Sated, Angel kissed him. They should get up now, set the room and themselves to rights, but how much more pleasant to cuddle languidly in the funk. 

Angel murmured to him. Spike murmured back. 

"So now you speak Chinese? Well how about that." 

The temperature in the tiny cabin plummeted. 

Silhouetted in the hatch over their heads, Buffy's shape was different. When she'd descended the ladder, Spike saw why--she'd traded the utilitarian clothes and boots she'd had until now for a dark blue silk cheongsam--which she was a little too thin to fill out properly--and her hair, grown so long during the centuries in stasis, had been put into multiple braids and arranged in an elaborate 'do. 

Angel was staring at her, blinking. 

"It smells like a locker room at the beach at the end of the season in here." 

"We were just gonna see to that," Spike said. Angel had instinctually pulled the sheet over them when they'd heard Buffy's voice, but he threw it back now and sat up. There was nothing here she hadn't seen. "You look lovely." He wasn't sure that was the truth, but he figured he'd better say it anyway. 

"I look like a trainee whore. But Kaylee and Inara were so nice. Kaylee wanted to give me _all_ her things." 

"So, the ladies satisfied that we aren't holding you against your will?" 

"I guess." Buffy drifted closer to them. "Can I request a sheet change?" 

"Sure love." 

Angel sat up. "I'll go back to my-- Let you be with--" 

Buffy looked at Angel. The impassiveness in her face made Spike's stomach sink. "Why should you go? It's not for me to separate you." 

"Just ... time to get cleaned up. Like you said." Angel reached down, found his trousers puddled on the floor by the bunk, and made a hasty, barefoot retreat. 

Buffy watched him climb up, and winced at the slam of the cabin door. 

"You look so good together. You look like good friends now." 

There was no sarcasm in the remark. Just wistful admiration, and sadness. 

"Yeah," Spike said. "Could tell you some stories, I expect." 

"I hope you will. I like stories. When you tell them." 

He wanted to pull her into his arms, but was aware that he was all smeary, and that she'd already remarked on the smell. Buffy was perfumed; he recognized Inara's scent, as he recognized her particular shade of lipstick on Buffy's glossy mouth. He wondered what she meant to convey by coming back in this get-up. Maybe nothing. Maybe she'd just submitted to the two friendly women's desire to "pamper" her. 

"But I don't know how you can tell me all about what you and Angel have been doing. All this time. I've missed too much." 

"Can give you the highlights." He wanted to change the expression on her face. Wanted to take all her anguish away. He always had. 

Buffy was already picking one of the tiny braids apart. She stared at it between her her fingers, almost cross-eyed. 

"It was so long ago. It was long ago when we were together, and I was lost lost lost, dead to the world, and you've moved on, and now ...." 

Spike wanted to kick himself. They were a couple of stupid wankers, letting her come in on them like that. Wasn't anything she didn't know or understand, of course, but it was too soon for him and Angel to carry on like this, being so frank about their liaison, while she was so fragile, hovering between existing and wanting not to exist. 

"Told you before, never never forgot you, always missed you. Angel an' me." 

"If you want to be alone with Angel ... I don't want to prevent that." 

He knew she was proposing to go away from them--possibly straight out an airlock--but he tried to take her remark lightly. "'Course not, love. An' when you want him to yourself, it'll be just the same. We'll work it out amongst ourselves, won't we, an' be happy. They'll envy us everywhere we go, an' you especially, havin' two such lookers as us in your bed." 

"Oh," she murmured, frowning, still picking abstractedly at her hair, "the bed is _mine_?" 

"Bed's always the lady's, yeah, to invite whom she likes." 

"So you'll be in _my_ bed, when you're making love to Angel? When he makes love to you?" 

_Fuck me, I stepped right in that one._ "Buffy--" 

She shrugged suddenly. "You just have to give me time! You've had all this time, and I've had none! I thought you were my husband, and now it's different. I just have to get used to it." 

"I am your husband." 

"No. No, you really aren't. And I'm not your wife. And Angel isn't ... isn't my lover. Nothing's that simple. I don't know what any of us are right now. We don't have a home. We don't have a _planet._ " 

"We have one another. We'll figure it out." 

Buffy looked him in the eye now. "It's good ... it's good that you didn't just throw him over, when you found me. There was a time when you'd have done that, you know." 

"Yeah." 

A feeling passed between them then that returned a modicum of Spike's hope. Buffy put a foot on the ladder, and began to ascend. When she reached the latch, she glanced down. "Should I start a pot of blood soup in the galley, or d'you think that would give your game away?" 

"You said it stunk in _here._ " 

"Might as well stink up the rest of the ship. That way, they'll _really_ remember us when we're gone." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Completed September 2005. Continued in chapter 3, "Mr & Mrs Grieves Again".


	3. Mr & Mrs Grieves Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We have to start again. All right? I want us to be together, like you two said the other night. I need you both. But I have to know if you both need me. Because right now it feels like you barely even remember who I am." Tears sprang to her eyes as she said this; the idea of it, of being forgotten by Spike, by Angel, contained a powerful horror.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another installment in the Bittersweets/Firefly crossover-verse that begins with A Crazy Gorram Story and its sequel In A Lady's Bed.

This was excruciating. He envisioned himself punching through the bulkhead, even as he sat loose-limbed on the edge of the bunk, hands curled around his kneecaps. "I think you're sorry about it. We don't have to do it again."

"I'm not sorry." She didn't look at him, though.

This didn't sound, Angel thought, like a ringing endorsement.

"Are _you_ sorry?" she challenged.

"To make love to you again? God, no."

"Soul still firmly in place." She sounded ambivalent about it.

"It ... it doesn't get loose that way anymore. You know that." The kind of happiness, so damn simple—emphasis on the _damn_ —he'd experienced that first time ... he couldn't really remember what it was. Like he couldn't remember how it felt to have a headcold. He'd experienced it, but all it was now was an abstract recollection.

Buffy stared at the wall. "In some ways, we barely know each other." She paused. "Most ways."

"Not most ways."

"I was your mother-in-law longer than I was ever your girlfriend."

It was all so far off. Jemima had lived long—supernaturally long, almost a hundred and fifty-eight years—and kept a semblence of youth for most of them. But unlike her unsinkable mother, she'd died finally, and never come back. Angel had long since stopped recalling Jemima on anything like a monthly, let alone daily, basis. He didn't think Buffy could understand, either intellectually or emotionally, how much time she'd lost to that magical stasis. She knew the number of years, she saw the changes in their world—worlds now—but she wasn't grasping the enormity of it. Perhaps it would make her insane if she really did. Angel suspected she was equally frustrated at the myriad ways that he and Spike—Spike especially, because of course he was the one who mattered—was removed from all that was so immediate to her. They must seem aloof, even while they were possessing her.

Hundreds of years since either of them had touched her.

Spike had assured her that for them she'd never really died, wasn't forgotten, was an eternal inspiration.

Words that had to be said to her. That would have to be said—over and over, until she believed them. If she ever would.

Maybe it was even true ... for Spike. But if it was, he hadn't talked about it. Prior to the uncanny quickening they'd jointly felt when Buffy's stasis ended, Angel couldn't remember the last time Spike had mentioned her name in conversation. Of course, once they knew she was in the world, all kinds of pent-up stuff came back—for both of them. They'd talked then—endlessly, enthusiastically, traveling towards her all the time; and they'd fucked like a couple of randy sailors months from port, and all the while with a sense that their lovemaking was somehow about Buffy as well as about themselves. Spike had found a way to express that in words, in a way that struck Angel to his heart, but he wouldn't have cared to try to explain it to her now.

And really, it couldn't have been true that Spike kept Buffy in the forefront of his mind all these centuries. He'd had other liaisons—some that lasted decades. The most recent, Neelia on Minerva, was certainly a love-match as deep as what he'd had with Buffy, and had broken his heart as surely as Spike's susceptible heart ever had been broken. Angel had envied as he tried to console him—the depths of emotion available to Spike, the luxury of loving so devotedly—seemed just out of Angel's reach, though he tried. Tried to care for Spike the way he wanted Spike to care for him. Because they did that. They had a connection growing broader and deeper over the stretch of time, as they united and parted and reunited again. That had nothing to do with Buffy. So long after her loss, how could it?

She had to be aware of that. That was at the crux of her distress right now.

"God!" Buffy said, following on from her last unanswered remark, "you must think I'm a babbling idiot. Mother-in-law." She frowned, as if it was a question she'd like to parse. "I'm not sorry about last night."

"Buffy—"

She dragged her gaze off the ceiling, and turned to him. "It _was_ a little strange, with Spike there. I'm not used ... I'm not used to the three in a bed thing."

"We don't have to do that anymore."

"I'm not saying—"

"Buffy, nothing needs to be decided now. You're free to—" Angel wasn't sure what he was promising. He sensed she'd have liked him to volunteer to leave them, when they got to the next port. She must want Spike to herself. But he wasn't going to volunteer that, and he knew Spike wouldn't ask it of him, or want him to go. Spike would need, apart from anything else, all the help he could get with Buffy.

"What am I free to? Free to watch you two get it on?"

" ... I was going to say, free to—"

She interrupted again, throwing up her hands extravagantly. "This is dumb! I know I'm being dumb! I'm just fixing on this little detail, because otherwise ... so, has it been like that all this time? You two traveling together?"

"Not all the time. There were gaps."

"Gaps?"

"Separations."

"Do you like riding around on spaceships? I'm surprised you don't have one of your own."

"I have had."

"Really? And what about Spike?"

"For a while, before the war, about fifty years ago now, we—"

"Fifty years!" Buffy puffed out her cheeks as if to expel half a century of dust from her lungs. Then she knocked on the bulkhead. "Metal. Metalmetalmetal. So, you and Spike, the big romance. Of each other's unlives. Really. Because, taken year for year—night for night—"

"He's had other—"

She spun around. " _What?_ "

"'Til pretty recently he had a wife." Angel knew he shouldn't be saying this. Spike hadn't instructed him to keep it a secret, but still, it was something Spike should've been allowed to reveal in his own time, if at all. He wasn't sure why he was telling it—maybe just to get a rise out of Buffy. Strike a little fire out of her. It certainly had.

"A wife."

"You should ask him."

"Oh, I will."

 

 

They were playing some kind of a game, with a ball, part keep-away, part shooting hoops. Buffy stood on the gangway above the cargo bay and watched. They were all in it, except for Inara, who didn't seem to be around, and Angel, whom she'd left in his bunk. Spike was showing off, using his vampire reflexes to cheat, but then handing off his advantages to one of the others to score, grinning all the while. They were all entranced by him, the women certainly, and the men too. The young doctor couldn't stop staring at him, and the big one with the girly name looked as if he wasn't sure whether he wanted to fight Spike or make love to him, but either way, he was obviously pining for her man's personal attention.

Her man. Of course she thought of him that way.

But he'd long since lost the habit of her, and in the hundred—hundreds!—of years that had elapsed since she'd last gone into battle with him at her right hand, he'd come to belong to Angel. And to others ... who knew how many. What would he be doing now, if she'd never come out her stasis? What was his life, his real life, that she'd so inconveniently crashed?

The captain scored a point, a cheer went up, and then Spike threw his head back and looked up at her in a way that showed that he'd known she was there all along.

"Come play, Buffy. You'd be good at this."

"I claim her for our side!" Kaylee said, gesturing up at her with a grin.

"Maybe later. I need to talk to my husband."

 

 

Her hand, when he took it, felt barely warmer than his own, but her pulse raced. "Well, love?"

"You left someone to come to me?"

He didn't understand the question; for a few moments, the words tumbled around in his head, and he tried to rearrange them into some sense.

Buffy looked at him wide-eyed. He must've been frowning. "Angel said you have a wife."

"You're my wife."

"I'm not. I was, but I can see that I'm not anymore. Don't lie to me."

"I'm not lying, Buffy."

"Who is your wife? Where did you leave her?"

Her tone, the blush burned along her cheekbones, and the papery feel of her fingers as she slipped them free of his own, reanimated so many deadened memories. Buffy's whole history of suffering. His love for her was born out of that ... and even more, hers for him. He was capable of forgetting that, even during their years together.

Cursing Angel, but careful to keep it from showing in his face, Spike said, "She was called Neelia. She died the year before last. I left no one to come for you." It occurred to him for the first time to wonder what would've happened if Neelia wasn't dead. Would he have walked away from her, to go to Buffy? Walked away and not wanted to return? In a blink, she returned to him, her leathery airy smell, her dry laugh, the way she had of squeezing the back of his neck, just a little too hard, as a parting gesture, how she'd hunch down and tilt her head to kiss him, and how though she was bigger and stronger than he was, she never made him feel he was anything but big enough and strong enough for her. He didn't like to think anymore about how, while he'd had her, he'd convinced himself he didn't love her. Maybe that was why she was taken away—because for once in his bloody unlife, he'd held something back. But he couldn't help but be relieved that she wasn't here, to make this complicated situation worse. "I would _never_ have not come for you. We knew, Angel an' me both, the second you woke, an' from that second, we did nothing but look for you."

"She died." Buffy twisted her hands together. Tears came to her eyes. "Were you with her a long time?"

"Eleven years."

"Eleven! Oh Spike!"

"I would've told you eventually. Didn't seem like the thing, just now."

"So since then, you've been with Angel?"

"Yeah."

"And before? Before Neelia? How many wives have you had?"

"Buffy, love. What's troubling you? You think I don't want you?"

"I want to go home."

"Oh love."

"Do you have a home?"

"Not at the moment. Not since ... not since Neelia's."

"And that was hers, wasn't it. Your home is always with your woman, isn't it?"

"Uh ... guess so."

"We don't have a place." Her face darkened, and he could tell she was thinking about their places—the flat in London, their beloved house in Reykjavik, and Sunnydale, where her mother was buried. She couldn't wrap her mind around the whole planet being gone.

"Spike, I won't sleep with Angel anymore if you won't."

"Is that what it is?"

"I don't know." She wrung her hands. There were so many things, he knew that, too many. Too many for the sanity of most people.

"All right."

"All right what?"

"Won't touch Angel if you don't like it."

"But I have no right to part you!"

She was crying. He wished she'd be angry; there was something too reasonable in her despair, as if she didn't feel entitled to her own life.

"Sssh, sssh. You know I always do what you say, yeah? I like to. Slayer-whipped, that's what everyone always used to whisper 'bout me."

"I can't ask that of you. I can't ask it of him. It isn't right. What was Neelia?"

He kept up with her sudden turns. "Her people ran cattle. You should've seen me, Buffy, I was quite the cowboy, when I was with them. Out in the light an' all. Turns out I don't freckle, though."

Her lips curved in answer to his smile, but the glimmer didn't reach her eyes. "I keep feeling it'll be all right, when you tell me, when you hold me, when we eat together. But then when I'm alone again I know it isn't, it can't be. I have the creeps all the time, like I can't breathe. I don't know what my life is now."

"I can think of a lot of times when that was the case. We've always gotten through."

"Who is the slayer now? Does the Council still exist?"

He shook his head. "Not as such. Dunno who the slayer is either. I believed Neelia was a slayer, she was so uncommon strong, but she only laughed at me when I tried to tell her about it. She didn't believe in demons."

"But didn't you—"

"Show her what I was? ... no. No, I never did."

Buffy stared at him then, stared for so long that he felt something strange slip between them.

"For eleven years. That's ... that's not like the Spike I know ... knew."

 

 

Buffy set the stopper back in the last bottle. She was almost reeling from the array of scents, the richness of the colored silks that festooned Inara's dressing table. "So ... doing what you do. Are you self-taught, or—"

"There's years of formal training, actually. Tests. Certificates. Licenses."

"Would I be too old to learn? I think I need to change careers."

"What was your career?"

"I'm the slayer."

"I heard him call you that. But I don't know what it means."

"Back on earth, there were vampires. And demons. Lots of them, lots of different kinds. There were hellmouths, and sometimes there were hell gods. And there's always a girl—except that after a while, there were two, me and another one—whose job it was to slay them. To save the world. The slayer is called, she's given the strength and the resources—some of the resources—to do the job. The fate of the whole world's on her shoulders."

In the mirror she could see Inara regarding her with a slightly alarmed, slightly incredulous attention.

"But now the world I was put in charge of saving isn't there any more, so I'm thinking I should pursue other opportunities. My skill-set is maybe a little specialized. But I'm really really good at fucking. At least, I was good at fucking my husband. But I get the sense there's more to this companionshp thing than sex."

"There is," Inara said. "Sometimes sex is the least of it."

"It's never been the least of it for us." Buffy saw herself in the mirror, her skin waxy, chest almost scrawny in the shirt she'd borrowed from Spike, the tails twisted tight around her ribs and tied in the back. The pearl necklace looked out of place on her now. She wondered when Spike had taken to white shirts. "He always loved me—and our children—more than anything. I never had trouble keeping his attention. I was the center of his being. He's the center of mine. But in the five hundred-whatever years that I've been _called away_ , Spike's been pursuing other interests. He tells me he wants me the same as always, but I'm not _blind._ I'm not _stupid._ Confused, yeah. Uninformed. Out of my depth."

"I can't imagine what you're going through."

"It's hard to believe. I sort of thought we'd lie about it, but I guess we're not doing that. Which is pretty much a relief. It's not easy being hundreds of years old and having your only so-called friends be two vampires, and it would be even tougher to pretend that wasn't the case. Especially since I have no idea how things work here."

"Your husband ... was always a vampire?"

"Well of course not _always._ Vampires are made, not born. But he was one when we met. I was supposed to slay him, he was trying to kill me, then shit happened, it was a thing." Buffy picked up a bracelet, an elaborate filigree piece that fitted over the fingers and the wrist. "A big passionate love thing. He subsists on love, Spike does. So I'm not surprised he's loved other people. Right now it's Angel. That's not really surprising either. They used to hate each other. I know for a fact that's how some of the best affairs get started. The fucking is incredible."

"Buffy—"

"I need to gain some weight." The filigree bracelet didn't fit right—it was meant for a slightly plumper hand. "But do you think if I put on fifteen pounds I could get this companion training? I'm not bad looking. You're not seeing me at my best. Is the money good? Because I like to have nice things."

"I think you should talk to the shepherd."

"Who? Mr Book? He's the religious guy."

"Yes. He's an excellent listener. He's very knowledgeable."

"You think I need spiritual advice?"

"I don't know. But you said you were confused, and he's good to talk to when you're confused, or lonely. I've talked to him myself. He's very discreet."

"I don't think that's going to help. I'd rather learn your dance of the seven veils stuff."

 

 

She couldn't find Spike, but Angel was reading in his bunk. Buffy realized, when she saw how slowly he looked up from his book, that he'd been running at something like half-speed since he'd first showed up with Spike to get her out of that hospital. His movements were contained, and efficient, and a little reluctant. Even when they'd fucked the other night, it was done quietly, without abandon. She'd put that down to Spike's presence and the fact that she, having been at it for hours, was tired herself. But she wondered about him now.

"Come fight me."

"Fight?"

"Train. I need to train. What have you got? Swords? Quarterstaffs. Staffs would be good."

He half sat up. "I've got staffs."

"Bring them."

There was no one in the cargo bay when she got there. Waiting for Angel, Buffy did some preliminary cartwheels and backflips, to loosen up. When Angel materialized, tossing her one of the long heavy staffs, she caught it neatly and charged him. Sparring made her feel like there was some sense to her world, it pulled her thoughts together, seemed to pull even the objects around her into a new, more manageable alignment. Wacking at Angel, lunging and ducking and coming around, she remembered what her body could do for her, where her strength and purpose resided. She was a little rusty; she'd have to fix that. She needed to gain weight, she needed to regain her flexibility, her inner focus. She wasn't perfect, but this was centering. Right.

Now she concentrated on making Angel trot. She didn't want him like a logy winter bear. The memory popped into her mind, sudden and vivid, of their sword fight before Acathla's maw. He'd been quick then, sharp and merciless.

Totally concentrated on her.

That was it. She didn't have his attention, just as she didn't have Spike's attention. Not like she used to have. If she wanted it, she'd have to fight for it.

She'd have to figure out if she really wanted it, still. For a second it occurred to her that it might be cleaner, lighter, _easier_ , not to want anything.

She dealt Angel a blow across the shoulders that sent him sprawling.

A Chinese curse—of course, to her it all sounded like cursing—alerted her to the presence of an audience. Looking up at the catwalk, she saw the big man with the beard and the funny name, what was it? Gail? Jayne. And crouched, not near him, but just as attentive, the girl with the wild stare. River. Her stare was intense now, full of comprehension and yearning. Angel was getting up slowly; Buffy picked up his staff and wielded it towards the girl.

"Want a turn?"

She didn't come down the stairs. She swung herself neatly over the rail and dropped down at Buffy's side like a cat.

Took the quarterstaff as if it was a fishing pole, turning it in her hands, her mouth slightly agape.

Then proceeded to nearly demolish her with it, before Buffy adjusted her expectations, and compensated.

Spike said he didn't know who the other slayer was now, but Buffy was pretty damn sure they had her right here.

From above, Jayne was a one-guy cheering section. Hooting section, really. At one point, a peanut shell he dropped caught in Buffy's hair. She was coated in sweat.

"You girls're gettin' me _hawt._ "

They stopped as one, and looked up at him. Angel was standing beside him now, but this Jayne made Angel look like a small man.

"You want in?" Buffy said. "C'mon down."

Jayne cracked open another peanut, and smiled. Angel glanced at him, and then at Buffy, and opened his mouth. But he didn't speak. Pulling her gaze from the big man, she faced River. For the first time she realized the other girl was barefoot. She'd barely broken a sweat. "Same time tomorrow?"

River smiled. It was like a sunrise.

 

 

She was scuttling from the shower back to her bunk, wrapped in a towel, when Jayne stepped out of a shadow and pulled her against him.

For a second, Buffy thought she might just be fantasizing this.

For another second, she thought of Spike, and what had happened the only other time she'd stepped out on him. But that was all in the time before, and while she'd been out, Spike had changed all the rules. Or—not changed the rules, because there can't be rules between a couple when one of them isn't there anymore. He hadn't resumed the old rules, that was the thing.

Well, he'd said he wouldn't sleep with Angel again if she didn't like it, but she didn't really believe him—it felt like a promise he wasn't really equipped to make. Jayne's breathe was hot against the back of her neck, and he was groping her breasts through the towel in a way that, were she in a different kind of mood, would've earned him a broken arm.

She wasn't in that mood, though.

They almost fell down into his cabin, hitting the bunk hard. Buffy scrambled from under his weight, straddled him hard. "I run this."

"You sure do."

He had a big cock, and big hands to go with his big body. He could span her whole rib-cage with them, and the width of her hips. Told her that he liked feisty little ones, told her that she was pretty. It was what she needed to hear. He admired her pearls, dangling between her breasts, as if they were as much of her as her nipples, which he flicked pleasingly with his tongue. He wasn't cautious with her, because he didn't know her. His ways were rough-edged, but considerate, and he was genuinely content to let her be in charge, until they'd been going for a while, and she wanted to cede control.

He was happy that she was there with him in his bunk. Her strength excited him; he exclaimed in Chinese when she took him in, and again—with a whoop of a laugh, when she rolled her hips, squeezing his prick with her secret muscles.

"Ain't you fine," he said, grinning up at her, his eyes glittering with lewd appreciation.

"Ain't I?" She found she was grinning back. This day was picking up. 

She'd planned to get up and go when they were finished—Jayne, so crude and energetic, didn't seem like the type who'd want to bask in the afterglow—he struck her as more the instant snorer type, or the get-up-and-forage-for-food kind of guy. But after they'd gone twice, he settled her against him with a tender gesture, his big arm around her, and she was content to rest her head on the furry slab of his chest. His heartbeat was loud and strong against her ear.

"That was what I call quality ruttin'."

"It was good, yeah."

"Those men of yours had better not come after me. I'll show 'em Vera if they do."

She didn't know what _show 'em Vera_ meant, but they all had such strange ways of talking here, half of their idioms went right over her head.

"They won't. I'm free to do what I like."

"Who learned you to fight like you do?"

"I had a teacher, a long time ago. But most of it's innate."

"Who's Nate?"

Buffy laughed. "Innate. Inside of me. Part of what I am."

"Doctor's sis nearly had you down an' out, though. Was somethin' to see. She's crazier'n a bug in aspic, but elsewise she's kinda like you. You know her before?"

"Nope." Buffy yawned. "But I feel a kinship with her, I think. She is similar to me. And maybe I'm crazy too."

"Not you."

"Why not? Because I like you?" She got up on one elbow so he could see her smile.

"She's touched in the head. You don't know. An' she's a fugitive, her an' her brother both. The gummint wants 'em."

"What for?"

"She's some kind of bloomin' genius, supposedly, when she's not nuts. Supposed to be workin' for them, but she doesn't want to."

Thinking of the Council, and her own long-ago attempts to escape its influence, Buffy nodded. "Don't blame her."

"Hell, no one _blames_ her. All anybody in their senses wants is to be free."

"So I guess she isn't really crazy after all?"

Jayne frowned. It was funny, watching him try to chase this apparent paradox around the shadows of his mind. Jayne wasn't stupid, Buffy could see that, but he was, in some ways, simple. Not used to complex thinking.

"She stabbed me once in the mess."

"Well, looks like your mess healed up all right. And I suspect you deserved it, didn't you?"

Jayne rolled across her, parting her thighs with one hand. "You women—"

Buffy grabbed his beard before he could kiss her, and forced him to look her in the face. " _You women_ what? We're all alike? We're all good for just one thing?"

"Good for plenty. An' hoorah for that. That's what I always say."

His fingers, as he said these words, ghosted with surprising and effective lightness across her clit; Buffy gasped and let her legs fall open.

Jayne kissed his way down her body, but when he neared her mons, Buffy sat up fast. "Don't—I don't want you to do that."

He looked up, perplexed. "Never met a woman didn't like gettin' her gem polished. I do it real good, too." He wriggled his tongue at her.

"I'm sure you do. But ... I keep that for someone else." She wasn't sure why she was saying this—it was a distinction of fidelity Spike wouldn't have acknowledged. The Spike she used to be married to. If he cared now that she'd slept with Jayne, he wouldn't care what she'd done with him or how many times, it would all be one to him. She didn't believe he'd really care.

She just didn't want anyone else's mouth on her but his. Whatever Spike thought about it, or didn't think. She just didn't.

Jayne said something else in Chinese that sounded annoyed and incredulous.

"Fuck again," Buffy offered. "Nice and slow, if you like that."

"I like it," Jayne said, taking the hand she held out.

He wanted to take her from behind, lying on their sides, but Buffy didn't want that either. If she couldn't look into his face, she knew she'd think about Spike while they were doing it. She was already imagining what Spike might say and do when he realized where she'd been, and Buffy was afraid it wouldn't be anything. The idea made her want to cry.

"You one of them girls that gets all sad-like when she's been screwed?"

"It's not your fault, Jayne. We're having a good time, aren't we? C'mon." She pulled him to her by his cock, pushed her hips up to take him in.

They were doing it again, but he was watching her now, and the mood was altered. She wished he'd be more indifferent to her emotions—he was supposed to be a big randy lug, this was supposed to be something to pass the time.

Jayne hesitated.

"What?"

"Don't want no unwillin' woman."

"I'm willing. I'm very willing. C'mon." She did the thing with her hips—the thing Spike liked—and smiled into Jayne's eyes.

It was all right after that. But a quarter hour later, when she'd resumed her damp towel and starting up the ladder out of his cabin, Jayne said, "You should make it up with that man of yours. Anybody's got a sweetheart, ought to make it nice with 'em, and not go lookin' for trouble elsewise." 

 

 

She didn't like having a cabin to herself. She knew why Spike and Angel had arranged it like this—when they'd picked her up at the hospital, she'd obviously needed a lot of space. They'd taken three berths on every transport since. But now she wanted to be with Spike, to have his things strewn around, to have him in her bed as a matter of course. It felt like a long time—not the hundreds of years that she'd been in stasis—she wasn't conscious then. The long time was the months after she came to, while she was confined to the hospital as a madwoman; added to the weeks leading up to that battle she'd so sorely lost, when anything resembling normal home life was already a source of nostalgia.

They'd found, in those weeks, only a couple of occasions to make love—hurried explosive sessions snatched at odd moments in odd places, without benefit of a bed or a chance to savor the afterglow—but apart from that, she'd barely had a private talk with him, let alone lain in his arms for a long sleep.

She wanted that now, his consoling presence, his familiarity. A couple of nights ago—was that all it was?—it seemed longer—she'd had that, or almost. And when Angel came in and joined them, it had seemed all right. They were both there, they were all together, she wasn't alone anymore.

But her mind couldn't work it, somehow. Not in these strange surroundings. Not knowing where she was headed.

Why not, she asked herself, as she lifted her face again to the shower spray, washing off after the hours with Jayne. Why couldn't she adjust to the way things were now? She'd always been strong. Always been able to cope with reality—or bend it to her will. And she'd seen worse in her time than _Serenity._

This time as she walked along the corridor, her wet hair dripping down her back, no one accosted her. When she was dressed again, in the cheongsam Kaylee had given her, she went to Spike's quarters.

He and Angel were seated at either end of the made-up bed, playing cards for money.

She hovered in the doorway above their heads, long enough for them to note what their olfactory senses could tell them. Both men stared at the cards for a long moment, then glanced at one another. Buffy couldn't see Spike's face full-on; Angel's stayed expressionless, but she was sure there was something there that Spike could read.

They were thick as thieves now, those two.

After another eye-blink, Angel set down his hand. "We can come back to this."

Buffy started to climb down into the room. "Don't go. We should ... you're part of this too."

"This what?"

Spike craned around to look at her. His face was mild, opaque. It was nothing like the face he'd confronted her with after she'd been with Saleem. Her courage dipped; this wasn't going to work, it was already too late. As she came near, he reached out to draw her in close to him. His touch was gentle, and his gaze, too. "Did he please you, love?"

She wasn't sure if his directness was a good sign or not.

"Yeah. He's not ..." _You._ " ... he was all right."

"Good, then. As long as he was nice to you."

"He was nice to me. He was appreciative."

"Course he was."

"Is that all?"

"Is what all?" Spike said.

Angel rose. "I'll go."

"No!" Buffy caught at his sleeve. Suddenly she didn't want to be alone with Spike. She didn't want to be alone with his indifference, which he would try to disguise as kindness. He'd been nothing but kind to her since he found her, and at that moment she didn't think she could bear any more. "Stay. I wanted to know ... I wanted to know if it _matters_ to you. To _both_ of you."

"Buffy, I think this is between you and him."

She shook her head. "It wasn't right for me to tell Spike he had to give you up. That's ... I withdraw that. I don't want to be your rival."

They were both regarding her now with interest, with attention. She still had no idea what they felt, about her, about what she'd just done, or what she was saying. They were waiting for her to explain. She wished they'd jump to conclusions. She wished Spike would be hot and quick with her, the way he used to be. She missed his flaring anger.

Angel glanced at Spike again. "So, you, uh ... you went with that crewman so we'd know ... that you're not trying to split us up?"

She shook her head wildly. "We have to start again. All right? I want us to be together, like you two said the other night. I need you both. But I have to know if you both need me. Because right now it feels like you barely even remember who I _am_." Tears sprang to her eyes as she said this; the idea of it, of being forgotten by Spike, by Angel, contained a powerful horror. It was horrible to her, to try to imagine the thousands and thousands of days and nights they'd passed without her, among people she didn't know, living their demon existences in a world she wasn't in any way a part of. That all that time could've erased her, so that now she was a stranger to them, an obligation they had to fulfill, was unthinkable, and yet it seemed to be what was happening to her.

She wanted to catch at Spike and howl; she wanted to curl against him like a little girl, like Sophie had done when they'd had to send her off to be kept safe before the final battle broke. Since she'd awakened into this nightmare world, she'd barely been able to think of Sophie at all, and couldn't bring herself to mention the name to Spike. Spike seemed to have forgotten that they'd had a daughter of eight, back when the war began, back when there was a planet Earth. He hadn't said a word to her about their child, or anybody else from that time, since he'd come for her at the hospital.

"I don't care if you're lovers! I don't! But if I'm just an obligation to you, if you don't feel _anything_ about me even if I go with another man—then ... then ... I'd rather face up to the facts, I'd rather go my own way."

The same kind of gusty terrified despair that had come over her at the sight of that birthday cake surged up now. She hated feeling so out of control; she wanted to be masterful, not inspire their pity with a tearful tantrum. But she wasn't used to living in this kind of emotional limbo. Being near Spike and feeling that he was so far away from her.

Spike pulled her into his arms, down onto his lap. She was crying now full-on, couldn't stop, or moderate, could only cling to his shoulders, gasping and sobbing. Dimly she was aware of Angel moving slowly up and out of the cabin, closing the hatch quietly on them. Spike stroked her hair, held her close.

"... I want to be your wife," she murmured, when the sobs let go enough to speak. "But I feel like you've forgotten me. You've forgotten me and you don't need me anymore to be your wife. I know there's too much time, there's too much time ... but you know there hasn't been any time for me, I never stopped. I never stopped, and now I can't catch up to where you are."

"Sssh, sssh. 'M right here. Right here, love."

"No."

"Not no. I'm here. I understand what you mean. Maybe I did forget ... you do, you know, when someone you loved more'n life is gone, and you've got to go on alone. If you don't forget a bit, you go mad. Angel'll tell you, I did go mad for a while. Blamin' him, blamin' everyone for what I thought happened to you. Whole order of my bloody unlife was swept away. But we had to press on, yeah, and yeah, had to live with what was, what was left."

"I know," she sniffed. "Oh Spike, it must've been so hard for you."

"Was a long time ago now. The pain of that's all gone for me. But I know it's not for you, I know it's fresh. Didn't mean to make you feel forgotten, sweet. We'll remember ourselves, won't we? Day by day an' night by night, we'll remember. You'll help me, remind me, tell me all the things you're thinkin'. We'll be Mr an' Missis Grieves again like we was, yeah? An' if you don't want Angel, I'll tell him we have to part. Parted from him enough times before, he won't die of it."

She hated herself for wondering if he was sincere, or if this was smooth Spike telling her what he guessed she wanted him to say. She never used to have to calculate like that.

"We can't leave him alone. He's not like you, he'll _be_ alone."

"It's you I'm worried about."

"I wish I knew if I believed that."

"Oh Buffy. Has it really come to that? You think I'm lying to you?"

Threading her fingers in his hair, she tugged his face towards hers. She wished she could look him in the eye while she said what came next, but she couldn't. "Spike ... I wanted to be with him, I just wanted to, you know, forget about things for a little while. But I didn't let him suck me off."

She waited, her nose just brushing his cheek, her mouth near his. Of course he wouldn't flush, she wouldn't be able to feel his reaction in the pulse he didn't have. But if he pulled away, she'd have her answer.

Spike moved his hand to her bare knee, and a thrill shot up through her, something more than sensual—like the narrowest rescue. A sob escaped her. Spike was whispering too. "You keepin' that for me, then?"

"Always."

"You go with that blighter again, I'll wring his fool neck."

"Will you?"

Spike's hand crept up the inside of her thigh. "He helped you remember who you are, yeah? 'Cause I reckon much's you thought I'd forgotten, you forgot too. You didn't seem to like me much, since I came to fetch you, nor Angel either."

"I got lost."

"Found yourself then, lyin' with that git?"

"I want you to make me belong to you again."

His fingers slipped between her cunny lips as she spoke; he pulled her tight against him, burying his face against her neck.

When he bit her, she cried out, in pain and surprise and the pleasure of being taken at her word. This was the one thing that really was only for Spike.

She'd always liked it best when he claimed her without asking or warning. It was the most intimate of their intimacies.

He fed deep, not stinting himself, and fucked her with his hand until she shuddered and wept. Suddenly he was kissing her, and it wasn't like the kissing they'd done up until now. The old fire was in it, the demand. She felt also the gratitude that always used to engulph him, when he'd drunk from her. Her slayer blood made him drunk with love, made him rampant; she felt all that with a resurging joy. It was still there, the demon passion, it was undimmed. Buffy pulled at his clothes, tore them, as they sucked each other's tongues. When her hand closed around his cock, she tugged on it, worked it hard, until Spike broke their kiss to gasp out loud.

Fucking Jayne had made her think about Spike. But when Spike went into her, she forgot all about Jayne, and everything else that had worried her. She rode his lap, feeling full, throbbing on him, and after a few minutes he pulled her in close and bit her again, on the other side.

"Yes. Yes." She held his head, combed and tugged at his hair. Her heart was a fountain for him. It felt mighty in her chest, pumping as she pumped on him. His hands possessed her breasts, skimmed her arms and back, and pulled through her hair. When he lifted his head, the golden eyes seemed to her the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. She kissed the fanged mouth, tasting her salt on his tongue. "My Spike ... lover ... my husband ...." They fell back across the bed; he rolled her beneath him.

"Should've done this from the first. That was my mistake. Should've bitten you an' fucked you 'fore we left that hospital, an' you'd have been all right, wouldn't you, my girl?"

"You were afraid of me. You'd forgotten what we used to be like."

"Got it now."

"Yes. Oh God. Oh—!"

He withdrew before she could come, and hovered over her, game-faced, grinning his most wicked grin. Looking at him, at his hard tight body, his glistening erection, and the demon eyes that glittered so dangerously, something in her gave way, relaxed completely. She was utterly and entirely safe.

"Eat me up."

She was already satisfied, even before he brought her slowly up to her first orgasm. Whatever else she'd have to face in this strange new life, she'd found her lost friend again. The one who helped it all make sense. She went liquid in his mouth, sobbing, and afterwards he consoled her in his arms for all the terrible pleasure he'd put her through.

 

 

"So I'm going to ask you some things, and I want you to tell me the truth."

"I always tell you the truth, Slayer."

She was done crying. Spike had bandaged her neck and given her a drink of water before returning to lie beside her. She'd slept a little, and now they were cuddled together in her warmth, under the blanket. Something that he had indeed forgotten about was reawakened in him; the deep hunger to be touching her, taking care of her, looking at her. He couldn't understand how he'd managed to hold off from all that—why he'd believed it was necessary. He should've known better. Should've known right away that she needed him to assert himself with her. After all, hadn't he won her in the first place by breaking through her near-catatonic despair when Willow brought her back from the dead? He should've recalled that, instead of being so hinky.

Her pale face still bore the washy look of her tears and panic and then her helpless ecstasy when he'd devoured her. The edges of her lips were bruised from his sucking kisses. He could still smell Cobb on her skin, but he was certain she'd forgotten all about him.

"But I mean, the unvarnished truth. I just want you to tell me the way it is. Because I need to understand things, so we can go forward."

"What things?"

"I want you to tell me about you and Angel."

"Tell you what? You see how it is."

"Maybe I do. But so we're sure I'm not misinformed, I want to hear it. Are you in love with him?"

"Not like it is with you. There's history ... you know it. What we have goes deep, an' its indelible. We're comrades, we talk to each other, rely on each other, an' we fuck."

"You talk,you rely, you fuck ... that _does_ sound like how it is with us. And he feels the same way about you?"

"You'd have to ask him, shouldn't put words in his mouth. But ... he doesn't try to rule me like he used to do once upon a time. He lets me go when I want to go, but he always welcomes me back when .... yeah. He treats me ...."

"Like an equal. Finally."

Spike nodded. "We're old old friends. We trust each other. We help each other bear up."

"It sounds cozy when you put it like that."

"Can be. But ..." He grinned suddenly, with that wolfish appetite he showed when he was about to go into what promised to be a good fight, or was recalling some atrocious thing he'd done back in the days before he exercised his conscience. "We fuck like the demons we are."

She eyed him blankly for a long moment, then all at once she smiled too, and her skin flushed, so that she warmed him all along his flank where he held her against him. "I can imagine. I ... I know."

"You do."

"So where was he while you were with that Neelia?"

"Here an' there, I suppose. He never fills me in much, 'bout what he does when we're apart. He's not much of a talker. He's got various associates. He does business. He keeps tabs on things."

"Things?"

"The mission."

"I've been waiting for someone to mention that."

"We keep it up," Spike said. "When we can. Things're different now. More spread out. Sometimes there's long periods go by when we don't meet up with any but human beings. Plenty of evil men do, but they're just men."

"I think the doctor's sister is a slayer."

"Angel mentioned that to me."

"Did he? What do you suppose the odds of a coincidence like that are? That I wake up after all these centuries, an' find myself a few weeks later on a teensy ship with the one other girl in all the worlds? What do you think?"

"Think somethin's afoot?"

"Well, duh. Do you have any idea what it could be?"

He shook his head. "I'm game for it, when the time comes."

"Good." Buffy sighed, and stretched, making sure to curve against him again as soon as she relaxed. "I want to talk to her. I want her to be prepared. Did Angel say anything to her?"

"I don't think so."

"So, what are we going to do? About Angel."

""What d'you mean, what're we going to do? Waitin' for you to tell me."

"I mean—I'll share you with him. That is, if he'll be content to share."

"You—"

"The threesome thing, that's an interesting idea, in the abstract. Except I don't think it's me he yearns for. In bed. In his heart. All of that is so long ago, it's burned itself out. It's you."

"You might be surprised."

"Whatever. The point is, I'm not going to be weird about it. We'll work it out. Like you both said the other night."

"You think there's enough of old Spike to go around?" he joked.

Again that smile came to her, that made her look girlish and strong. "Oh yeah. Always."

"Because it really will be like you say. You say 'no Angel' an' I'll send him off. He'll understand. You bein' my missus."

"We shouldn't talk about him like this behind his back. And for the last time, I _don't_ want him gone. I need you both. My friends. My ... anchors."

"We know you."

" _Yes._ "

She burrowed her face against his neck. "Just promise me ... promise me we can have our alone time. Some nights when I get you to myself. I want to sleep with you. I want to lie down with you and chat like we're doing now. Can we share a cabin?"

"'Course we can. An' what about Angel? Don't you want to chat to him in bed too?"

"Sometimes I will. We'll work it out. We'll just have to."

A burst of happiness came over him, simple, almost childish. She was once more reasonable, no longer entrapped so completely in the throes of grief-tinged confusion that he couldn't reach her. She was Buffy and she loved him. Miracles never did cease. He'd have to be sure to always remember that.

 

 

When they went looking for Angel, they found him in the cargo bay, sparring again with River Tam. She was looking gleeful, taunting him to show her his other face.

"I know you have one. I've seen it. I see it when I sleep."

Buffy glanced at Spike when they heard that.

It was Spike who changed, showing River his fang array in a snarl. She lit up at the sight, and began to laugh, as if at a puppy who'd done a trick.

Buffy had seen a lot of slayers react to their first sight of the business end of a vampire, but none of them had ever done _that._

Then she came up to Buffy, too close, and sniffed at the scarf she'd bound around her neck to cover the bandages. Surprised, affronted, Buffy stepped back. River looked at her, with her head on one side. Buffy could see her thinking, as if the thoughts flitted by at great speed deep in her eyes. "You feed him. Does that make you stronger too? Will I feed this one?" She gestured at Angel.

Four voices barked _"NO!"_

The doctor, aghast, rushed towards them, pulling River away. "What are you talking about—what are you doing?"

"We should talk, all of us ... " Buffy began. But Simon was dragging River towards the exit.

"She's a vampire slayer," Buffy said. "She knows she is. I can teach her. We all can. We might not have a lot of time. I'm pretty sure something is going to happen soon, something that will require both of us to stop it."

Her brother went on pulling her, scolding that she was to leave these passengers alone, that she wasn't supposed to be fighting, even for exercise. He didn't seem to want to hear a word Buffy said.

But River heard. She craned around even as she continued to let herself be marched off, her gaze connecting with Buffy's. She broke into a beatific smile. And she was gone.

 

 

"I want you to leave my sister alone." 

The doctor was wearing his sternest face. He meant what he said. Angel could see that. He could scent it. 

He could also scent something else. 

He said nothing. 

Dr Tam withdrew.

 

 

A day passed; Buffy and Spike, having rediscovered one another, were making themselves scarce, but River was present; she was full of questions. Angel found her intelligence sobering. She was so forthright. There was no euphemism about her. She looked into his eyes with the frankness of a child, and he could see, past the insanity that so concerned the others, the vast stark pool of sense and acceptance that made her such a rare, superior--and deeply alienated--creature. 

She was so much more than merely a slayer. 

He knew he wouldn't be able to teach her very much, but what he could, he'd have to impart.

 

 

When Dr Tam confronted him again, it was after River suffered some minor injury while sparring. He chose to come this time to Angel's bunk, late in the ship's night. He seemed to assume he'd find Angel awake. 

"Look, I don't know what you are--" 

"I'm a vampire." 

"--but I don't want you near River. I don't want--" 

"This isn't about what you want," Angel said. "It's about what she is." 

The gruff tone made the doctor frown. "This--what? _What are you talking about_? Since when do you and my sister have a _this_? We don't even know you!" 

"Your sister is a Slayer. A chosen one. _The_ chosen one, of her generation." 

"You're talking in riddles." 

"She's like Buffy. Buffy is the other one. The one who's immortal. Look, I know what it sounds like, to the uninitiated. But you need to _get_ initiated, doctor. Do you think it's a coincidence that in the whole verse, those two have fetched up in the same place at the same time? They have work to do." 

"I am trying to _protect_ my sister from--" 

"You're fugitives. We know that. It just happens to be beside the point." 

"Beside the point ... it _is_ the point. It's our whole _gos se_ point anymore." He did a sort of double-take. "What point?" 

The doctor had been raised, like Angel himself, with an enormous sense of entitlement; he wasn't used to fitting himself into this new world that was at once much smaller and more vast than what he was used to, what he thought he understood. 

His body--his whole essence--was wound tight, had been wound to breaking point for a long long time. Angel could smell his desperation, his deprivation. Of all the misfits on this little ship, he was the one who, despite his close ties to the beloved sister, because of them, was the most alone. 

That prideful apartness roused a little of Angel's short supply of sympathy. The doctor was profoundly irritating, but Angel understood him. He reached into a storage locker, brought out a bottle and a couple of glasses. 

"Sit down. I'll explain it in words of one syllable."

Drunkenness made Dr Tam looser, made the aroma of his body, clean and reined in, radiate more strongly. But it didn't make him merry. His eyes were a bit bleary when he spread his hands open on the small table between them. "So ... so all the forces who are after my sister ... Blue Sun, the government ... all of that is _in addition_ to this other thing? The saving humanity from the forces of darkness thing?" 

Angel tipped the last of the whiskey into Simon's glass and set the empty bottle down on the floor with exaggerated gentleness. "Look, everything is everything. I've been around long enough to know. Everything dark that humanity is into, there's demonic influence on. This whole universe, it's one big proving ground for the Powers That Be. Total darkness ... is possible. Rooting out the darkness totally though, that isn't. The best we can hope for is to keep things in a workable equilibrium." 

"You don't think it's possible? Really? That two skinny little girls with swords can vanquish all evil? What kind of a pessimist are you?" Simon grinned suddenly, a grin that made him look manic and boyish in the dim lamplight. "Because I do. I believe that. I'm so ready to believe--" he glanced at his watch. "Oh, there's plenty of time for me to believe _more_ impossible things before breakfast. There's hours yet. Hit me." 

"I'm sorry. That River's task is so hard. That yours is." 

Simon squinted then, the smile vanished. "No you're not. You're not sorry at all. I don't even know why you're pretending. You pretend to be human, too. But you don't do either thing very well, really." 

He wouldn't have said that either, Angel thought, if not for the drink. And it was true; he wasn't sorry in a hugs and puppies way. It was an additional challenge, that was all, that the new slayer, who was clearly special among the special, was also handicapped by being a political fugitive. It would make it that much harder for her to do her job. 

But then, Angel reflected, that situation might turn out to be _the_ situation. They didn't know yet. 

For centuries, since the end of Earth, Angel had had to work without a visionary, and usually without research. The old books were either gone or hidden beyond his reach. Things weren't like they used to be. He'd felt disconnected from the mission. Or else the mission had gone so far underground that even he was left out of it. Most of what he'd done in the centuries since Buffy's loss was small stuff, compared to what he'd done since he'd first laid eyes on her. Sometimes he wondered what it meant, that after the abandonment of earth, the whole demon threat was so much less. Occasionally he'd dared to think that the tide had turned. But mostly he'd kept hold, in the back of his mind, of the idea that something must be brewing, something that could afford to bide its time. 

"I believe your sister trusts me. I hope you'll trust me too. Trust us--Will, Buffy and me. We'll help you. And we'll be a team." 

"A team." Simon frowned, squeezing the bridge of his nose. "With you zebras." 

"Zebras?" 

~END~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Completed December 2005.


End file.
